Question: What does inclusion in the deficiencies of others mean? How does this happen?

Answer: When you are concerned for others, you are included in all of their deficiencies. They say that by way of five people you are connected with the entire world. It’s logical that if our groups work with dissemination, for example in South America, as of today close to half a billion people live there, so by way of connection with a few thousand people, by way of the general network, they receive the deficiencies of tens, and even hundreds of millions of people.

Our groups disseminate integral education to all corners of the world and in a form like this they awaken this connection. It’s logical that all the deficiencies caught in one “fish net” reach our center, and from here the method of correction is derived. And we absorb the deficiencies of the entire world and continue to raise them upwards to the Creator, to the “Malchut de Ein Sof,” wanting to be “as one man with one heart.”

When we work in the form of a pyramid like this, we correct the entire world and carry out work that is called the “work of the Kohanim – priests,” the work entrusted to Israel. All human deficiencies belong to the material world, the need for nourishment, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge. But we have reached such a crisis that we are not prepared even to fulfill the earthly desires without the right connection between us. And this shattering is discovered more and more every day.

Formerly we endured various private problems, divisiveness in the family, problems at work, and problems in the education of children. These problems did not threaten our existence directly. But today the problems have already risen to the level of the general ecology, health, the breakdown of the concept of the family, and mass unemployment. These are simple daily problems that our existence depends upon in this world.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/13

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Baal HaSulam, “Exile and Redemption”: This is why our sages said, “Israel is the fiercest of the nations,” as one whose mind is broader is most obstinate.

This is a psychological law. And if you do not understand me, go and study this lesson among the contemporary members of the nation: While we have only begun to build, time has already disclosed our fierceness and assertiveness of the mind, and that which one builds, the other ruins.

…This is known to all, but there is only one innovation in my words: They believe that in the end, the other side will understand the danger and will bow his head and accept their opinion.

This is exactly how different parties in parliament—members of the same party and any person against himself—fight. This division means that everything is in contrast to everything else. Everyone insists on what they believe. Everyone zealously guards his own views, expecting his rival to succumb and agree with him. The parties insist and confront each other, competing as to who is stronger and who is more determined. It makes no difference whose approach is more just since they are all after who will rule. Everyone is looking for the means to dominate others by force and/or cunningness.

There is no hope for peace and for correction under such conditions. It is clear that the people are under the domination of all these rivals and never will really benefit from the “circus” at the top.

We, however, must have no part in this struggle. We turn to the people only for one reason: to connect everyone and set an example of how connection helps us organize things and win. It isn’t about beating others, but about beating the problems. This is the only way we can act, and this is actually what Baal HaSulam tried to convey to Ben Gurion (the first Israeli prime minister) and to other leaders. He tried to explain how to establish the right relationships in government and how to build society and the state.

Generally speaking, we can be part of the municipal, state, or global leadership, but only if you are strong enough to hold onto connection between everyone and constantly work on that. In that case, it makes no difference what issue is discussed, whether it is national security, education, housing, problems of different parts of the population, and so on. You only say one thing: It is possible to correct it on the basis of connection and we must establish the right relationships between people. Later, based on this, we can solve any problem (if there any are left) after we connect correctly.

According to this approach, we don’t take part in the general quarrel, but rather accumulate the power given to us by the people so that eventually we will subdue all the quarrelers by the main solution, which is the need for integral education and the connection of the people. Even if they don’t believe us, it is important that we reach a mutual agreement that will allow us to fulfill this method. It already will bring about the changes.

We never should argue with anyone about anything, no matter what, except for the one main thing: that we can reach a solution only through integral education and the connection between us.

This is the difference between us and the others since they discuss the solution for a certain problem, while we speak about the universal means, about the approach that we must fulfill in order to solve any problem. Generally speaking, we see this world as a means for correction, and they see it as an arena for their activities. We think that we should correct ourselves, and they believe that we should correct the world. It is a huge difference, the difference between the cause and the effect.

One might wonder how connection is relevant to housing, to the educational system, and to other problems. We say that we should connect first and then solve the problems. In the meantime, people are receiving integral education gradually, and the problems disappear. When a person’s nature changes as a result of the right educational method, he already begins to look at life differently.

We still must clarify this mechanism, but it already is clear that there are advantages and disadvantages to this approach. The advantage is that we don’t fight others on their territory. As long as they fight, we sit aside since we know that none of their solutions will work, but only our solution. Why? It is since they don’t understand the main thing: that the problem in the world is the lack of connection. This is where all the problems stem from. So, instead of discussing endless numbers of problems, we must treat the root of the problems: the fact that we are separated.

However, in order to grow stronger and activate the means and the resources needed to fulfill integral education, we need great support from the public. We must turn to the public, avoiding any arguments, and receive the power from the people. We don’t need power in order to prove that someone has beaten someone else. On the contrary, we work where we have no competition. No one else can be where we are.

On the other hand, however, this is also a disadvantage. The struggles between them are evident. People go out to the street in order to achieve something, and the leaders talk about that. We are very abstract, vague, and may seem to speak about a fantasy of some blurry connection among people. However, if we do succeed in explaining that the real power is in the connection between us and that it will help us change our lives, we will be able to draw very far away from all the “wise guys” and advance safely along our path.

As long as society assumes that everything depends on blind fate, the parties will continue to argue about the methods and the solutions for different problems. However, in fact, no one can solve them since they stem from nature and it requires the understanding of the general system that currently is concealed from humanity. So, we must connect it to the force of the Light, to be the link, and then we will succeed in carrying out our mission.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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There are people who have the aspiration to reveal the Creator, the spark in the heart. To the extent that they work to connect these sparks between themselves with the help of the Light that Reforms, the Light reigns in them. And if they also strive to connect with those who do not have longing for the Creator, they can also shine on their lives the Light that they received earlier in the work with each other.

That is, first there is work in the group, where due to the connection we accumulate the Light between ourselves. Then we can reach out to the general public that does not seek the revelation of the Creator and become the glue that connects everyone together, to transfer there a bit of received Light. And from them we can receive the desire to unite, to become corrected.

They do not understand that these desires are directed to unity and correction, they perceive them as individual failures, the problems of this world. But in fact, these are the same eternal questions of existence and problems because everything depends on whether you are closer to or further from the Light, from the Creator. We have to hear a prayer in every problem, every cry born in this world, even in the dead stone, a plant, or animal.

Any type of creation lacks only the revelation of the Creator. But we can approach this deliberately by our free choice, and that is why we must take responsibility for all kinds of creatures and provide them with connection. In this way we fulfill the desire of the Creator.

The greater devotion and self-denial with which those who are called Israel “Yashar-El” (directed “straight to the Creator”) perform their work, the more the whole world becomes corrected. Conversely, if they still ignore the work assigned to them, the whole world suffers, and this suffering is ultimately returned to Israel in order to rush them to begin correction.

Therefore, there is no need to perceive these problems as suffering. All the rewards and punishment are whether we perform or do not perform the desire of the Creator. This is the entire reward and the entire punishment.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/20/13

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The Creator has created the desire to enjoy and prepares it for adhesion with Himself, meaning for the final state that this desire has to reach, to want to become similar to the Light. Inside, it remains the same desire to enjoy, but externally it takes the form of the Light, the property of bestowal.

In order for the desire to enjoy wanting to become like the Creator, that is, wishing for adhesion, it needs to have the properties of the Light in addition to its property of reception. And it also has to explore its property, to understand, feel, and become aware of its attachment to it and want to get rid of it, that is, to comprehend it in the direct and opposite form. Besides that, it also needs to understand and feel the desire of bestowal, and compare them with each other.

It turns out that the Creator created this desire to be versatile and combine many shades of these two properties: the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow. On the basis of inclusion of one property into another, it begins to understand every property, and after all the scrutiny, it obtains the mind, the head, that is, intention, the ability to make conscious actions.

But with all this complexity of the desire to enjoy, consisting of a clever weave of properties of reception and bestowal in the mind and heart, that is, in intention and action, in the thought and feeling, in essence, there is only one important point—the point of freewill. And the rest is managed by this point.

If the created being attains this point, then it is called “Yashar-El” (straight to the Creator), Israel. And everything else that the created being has inside of his understanding, attainment, mutual inclusion of desires, intentions, and thoughts, except for this point, does not belong to Israel, but belongs to its consequence, this point of freedom of choice, and everything else flows from it.

The Creator is the property of bestowal and treats both sinners and righteous kindly. No change ever occurs in Him. The desire to enjoy, except this one point Israel, is completely in the power of its nature. It can change, but solely due to the only free change that is possible in this system, which is called the point of Israel.

Therefore, we must understand that the upper force and the desire to enjoy are at absolute rest. The only element of creation that can change and decide something is Israel. Consequently, there is no need to look at those who have no point in the heart since they have no freedom of choice. Although they look like people, they are not those people, the sons of Adam, who are similar (Domeh) to the Creator, like the point in the heart.

So, no matter what happens in this world, regardless of how they attack and mock us or if they are for or against us, all this is the demonstration of the desire to enjoy in relation to us. It only shows us the need to make our free choice in order to bring it to adhesion with the Creator. That is our job.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/13

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We represent the adapter between the Creator and creation, a connecting link, the chosen nation,  the “kingdom of priests.” We are the ones that received this mission from the Creator and each day we must hear these instructions anew from Mount Sinai, understand that the entire world is nothing but a desire to receive that is perceived within us in forms of still, vegetative, animate, and human nature. Our mission is to bring all of these levels to adhesion with the Creator.

Other people don’t have any freedom of will, no independent actions or thoughts; nothing is within their control. The upper force acts within them and puts them before us in order to give us work, which is to lead them toward the Creator. By means of this work, we will reach the exalted mission that rests upon the nation of Israel.

We must have this outlook with regard to all of reality and the entire picture that is being presented within our desire to receive. It doesn’t matter how we imagine actions in dissemination or work to attain unity and search for the upper force that corrects and unites us, bringing us to a good life, but naturally by all of this we imply adhesion with the Creator.

In our eyes the entire universe is divided into two halves: the Creator and the desire that needs to be brought to adhesion with Him. Through this work we will attain adhesion with the Creator. Such is our mission and it’s the only work that exists in reality. After all, everything else simply unfolds in accordance with the program of creation in which there is no freewill or work on the creature’s part.

Any time we appeal to people, to the physical nation of Israel or to the nations of the world, in all of them, we must see the desire that we have to bring to adhesion with the Creator. And even though we are talking to people in simple terms, we must always remember the Creator and that He ordered this work and chose us to be His servants and His holy nation, meaning a buffer or His representatives. Besides Him, there exists the “material” without freedom of will, meaning all those who don’t possess the desire to be closer to the Creator, and we have to bring them to this adhesion. Therein lies our mission.

A person that carries out this work and tries even in the most external form to bring this “human material” to the Creator is performing the most important mission. Even though it’s just the beginning, it’s more important than anything else. We must understand, feel, and set our intention so that our beginning action includes the end result, which is to bring the still, vegetative, animate, and human nature to adhesion with the Creator. In the beginning of each action we have to understand that we are making it for the sake of final correction.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/13

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Question: Yesterday the Israeli Finance Ministry announced a cut in pensions of 10%. The economic situation is becoming more severe…

Answer: Since the day before yesterday we have not attracted the Light that Reforms which would correct our state to the same degree; instead of lowering 10% from the pension they would have added 10%. We are to blame because only we have free choice. If we had carried out a correction yesterday, today we would not hear about this.

What do you want from the government? The politicians and the government officials base themselves on facts: Here is the budget, here are the expenses, including the “hidden” manipulations, and this is what is left for the pension. And what will you do here?

Stop dreaming about a “fair budget.” We cannot come to them with claims. They are only arguing about where to get what’s missing. And understandably, they don’t collect taxes from the big tycoons and corporations. There is no nation in the world where they deprive the rich, rather the opposite, they only add more and more to them.

The authorities act according to their egoistic calculation and continue in the same way. Ten percent of the pension is nothing compared to what is standing ahead of us.

If you want changes, only the Light that Reforms can bring them. Therefore, understand—everything depends on you.

Behind the scenes the higher force acts and we are prepared to change its influence on us from negative to positive. It sends us the evil only so we will be “caught” in it, obligating it to be linked to us and correct us.

We need the Creator and until we understand this it is as if we are left in the hands of blind fate.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “Exile and Redemption”: As long as we followed the path of Torah, we remained safe.

As we all know, all the commandments of the Torah come down to one main rule “Love thy friend as thyself.” All the commandments are the correction and the changing of our desire to receive from the intention of in order to receive to in order to bestow. So if the people of Israel performed all these corrections and kept the principle of love, they wouldn’t suffer from all the afflictions of being in exile.

On the other hand, we have to understand that the exile is essential; we have to feel it and to actually be immersed in it for some time.

It isn’t by chance that a couple of centuries ago Kabbalists in eastern Europe used to exile themselves, a person would leave his home and wander not knowing where to. He walked around among people and encountered different troubles and problems and found himself in different situations that allowed him to “mingle” among all those who hated him.

Such voluntary exile helped hasten the general exile so that it would end much sooner than the predetermined date. Kabbalists didn’t do it for themselves but actually in order to bestow. Today it is hard to imagine what situations and afflictions they put themselves through. Yet, they felt they had to go through all that in order to acquire the real power to turn to the Creator.

Theoretically, however, if the people of Israel had kept the law of love and had not adopted the manners of their neighbors, they wouldn’t have been incorporated in them in exile and wouldn’t have discovered the evil and hatred others feel towards them. So all the bad things that are discovered are actually the same “hardenings of the heart” that we didn’t manage to turn into ascents and which thus have caused us to descend…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “Exile and Redemption”: As long as we (the Israeli nation) followed the path of Torah, we remained safe.

The Torah is the law of bestowal, “don’t do unto your friend what is hateful to you,” and then “love thy friend as thyself” until we reach “love thy Lord your God.” If you really yearn for the goal in all these phases, if you value your life only according to these principles and advance from the minor corrections to the general correction, if you act this way according to the laws of nature (or the laws of the Torah, as the word God and the word nature have the same numerical value), then you are in the right direction and nothing bad can happen to you on the way.

All the evil that you encounter is revealed to you only because you have not corrected a certain flaw that you should have corrected in the current phase. These flaws are revealed one after another from the minor to the more serious ones and if you don’t correct them they accumulate.

Since these processes are also typical to the systems in our world, minor corruptions or an illness can be corrected immediately in the initial phase, but if we neglect the problem the corruptions accumulate and bring about additional corruptions and greater problems and troubles that are hard to overcome.

So if the people of Israel observed the Torah, which means that the Light that Reforms would correct all the flaws that are revealed from the minor ones to the most serious ones, then nothing bad would happen to it. On the contrary, it would rise and grow stronger; it would feel the future corrections and the future fillings in the flaws that are revealed.

All the evil that we encounter is revealed since we neglect the necessary corrections. All our problems starting from the private ones and all the way to global disasters like world wars depend only on the corrections. Since the Israeli nation is responsible for these corrections, then clearly the moment people feel bad in this world they accuse the Jews and blame them for all the troubles in the world.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Straight to the Creator

One wishes to complete one’s soul and return it to its root, which is considered Israel.
Baal HaSulam, Letter 17

Following the path that leads to the Creator is called Isra-El (directly to the Creator). It means that the person’s intentions in all their actions should be aimed straight to the Creator.
Rabash, Shlavey HaSulam, Article 20, “Who Strengthened Thy Heart?”
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[Commentaries in brackets are mine]

Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee): The Entire Nation of Israel is Responsible for One Another

This is to speak of the Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) [that can be achieved only] when all of Israel became responsible for one another.

Because the Torah was not given to them [to the group that was founded by Abraham and brought to a decision to stay in Arvut by Moses] before each and every one from Israel was asked if he agreed to take upon himself the Mitzva (precept) of loving others in the full measure, [as a result of their work on achieving unity] expressed in the words: “Love thy friend as thyself…

[The essence of the commandment is] Each and every one in Israel would take it upon himself to care [for all participants of the group] and work for each member of the nation, [for each friend] and to satisfy all their needs, no less than the measure imprinted in him to care for his own needs.

And once the whole nation unanimously agreed [to be in a state of a complete unity in their desires] and said, ‘We shall do and we shall hear,’ each member of Israel became responsible that nothing shall be missing from any other member of the nation. [Meaning their spiritual development] Only then did they become worthy of receiving the Torah, [the Light of correction that would gradually lead them to Arvut] and not before [because there was no readiness to implement mutual guarantee and the desire to unite as it was before the shattering of one unified Soul.]
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